New Hampshire Health News Digest

LiveScience.com - Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds : Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and understand their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense debate in cognitive science. Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root. We're all essentially mind readers, they say. The idea has been slow to gain acceptance, but evidence is mounting. Mirror neurons In 1996, three neuroscientists were probing the brain of a macaque monkey when they stumbled across a curious cluster of cells in the premotor cortex, an area of the brain responsible for planning movements. The cluster of cells fired not only when the monkey performed an action, but likewise when the monkey saw the same action performed by someone else. The cells responded the same way whether the monkey reached out to grasp a peanut, or merely watched in envy as another monkey or a human did. Because the...

LiveScience.com - Depressed? Take a Hike : "AUSTIN, Texas (AP)—Just 30 minutes of brisk walking can immediately boost the mood of depressed patients, giving them the same quick pick-me-up they may be seeking from cigarettes, caffeine or binge eating, a small study found. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found that people suffering from depression who walked on a treadmill for 30 minutes reported feeling more vigorous and had a greater sense of psychological well-being for up to an hour after completing the workout."

Article One hopes he won't make the same mistake again by ignoring the counsel of Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who said in a speech last month that "since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited." If it does, one of the first consequences will be massive Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis. Over the past year, a chorus of voices has called for Saudi Arabia to protect the Sunni community in Iraq and thwart Iranian influence there. Senior Iraqi tribal and religious figures, along with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and other Arab and Muslim countries, have petitioned the Saudi leadership to provide Iraqi Sunnis with weapons and financial support. Moreover, domestic pressure to intervene is intense. Major Saudi tribal confederations, which have extremely close historical and communal ties with their counterparts in Iraq, are demanding action. They are ...

Westhawk: What if Mr. al-Maliki abandons Mr. Bush? What if Mr. al-Maliki abandons Mr. Bush? In spite of denials from White House staffers, it appears as if Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki snubbed U.S. President Bush today, cancelling a planned meeting in Amman, Jordan. According to Mr. Bush’s spokesman, the two leaders are to meet instead tomorrow. A bit of kabuki theater may be occurring here. Moqtada al-Sadr, a seemingly reluctant parliamentary supporter of Mr. al-Maliki, threatened to withdraw his political support of the prime minister if Mr. al-Maliki met with the U.S. president. Today, al-Sadr carried out his threat, sort of. He and his parliamentary bloc are boycotting parliament, but only temporarily. In return for retaining al-Sadr’s support after this temporary display has ended, perhaps Mr. al-Maliki arranged to show some sign of independence and defiance of the U.S. government by snubbing Mr. Bush for a day. Such theatrics aside, the serious policy discussion in Wash...

Iran's Ahmadinejad: America's New Pen Pal Media commentators in the U.S. are likely to pick up on the “public relations” side of the letter. Ahmadinejad calls on the U.S. to bring the troops home from Iraq, to cut off support for Israel, and to stop “kidnapping presumed opponents from across the globe” and holding them in secret prisons. He even has some advice for the new Democrat majority in Congress: Bend to the Muslim agenda, or you will be tossed out of power. Ahmadinejad repeatedly tries to appeal to Americans as people of faith, who share Islamic values. “We, like you, are aggrieved by the ever-worsening pain and misery of the Palestinian people,” he drones. “Persistent aggressions by the Zionists are making life more and more difficult for the rightful owners of the land of Palestine.” And he trots out his old anti-Semitic saw, claiming that “the Zionists” control America “because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, fina...

Transatlantic Intelligencer :: Are 500,000 Keys to Paradise Enough?: Germany "Confronts" Ahmadinejad Is the Iranian population being thus prepared for the announced nuclear war against Israel? Three years ago, the then Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that a single atom bomb used against Israel “would leave nothing on the ground”, whereas the damage done by a possible retaliatory strike would be limited (source: MEMRI Special Dispatch, 3 January 2002). Even with a million dead, the Islamic world would survive, whereas Israel would be destroyed. Thus the logic of Rafsanjani’s argument. It is this murderous calculation – the sort of calculation that lies at the base of every suicide attack – that distinguishes the atomic ambitions of Iran from the interests of all existing nuclear powers. If there is a western nation today that has the means to confront such madness with effective sanctions, it is Germany. For the last 25 years, the German government has offered i...

BREITBART.COM - US military trains 'air force' of bomb-sniffing bees : US military defense scientists have found a way to train the common honey bee to smell explosives used in bombs, a skill they say could help protect American troops abroad. Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said in an online statement published Monday they had developed a method to harness the bee's exceptional olfactory sense. 'The new techniques could become a leading tool in the fight against the use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which present a critical vulnerability for American military troops abroad and is an emerging danger for civilians worldwide,' the research laboratory said."

How the imams terrorized an airliner-Nation/Politics-The Washington Times, America's Newspaper lgf: don't indiscriminately go wild! : "Muslim religious leaders removed from a Minneapolis flight last week exhibited behavior associated with a security probe by terrorists and were not merely engaged in prayers, according to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials. Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted “Allah” when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix. “I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud,” the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department. Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks — two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit ai...

The 751 No-Go Zones of France [Weblog] - Daniel Pipes The 751 No-Go Zones of France November 14, 2006 They go by the euphemistic term Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones, with the even more antiseptic acronym ZUS, and there are 751 of them as of last count. They are convienently listed on one long webpage, complete with street demarcations and map delineations. What are they? Those places in France that the French state does not control. They range from two zones in the medieval town of Carcassone to twelve in the heavily Muslim town of Marseilles, with hardly a town in France lacking in its ZUS. The ZUS came into existence in late 1996 and according to a 2004 estimate, nearly 5 million people live in them. Comment: A more precise name for these zones would be Dar al-Islam, the place where Muslims rule. (November 14, 2006)

French police the target in urban guerrilla war - Yahoo! News PARIS (Reuters) - Stoned, beaten and insulted, their vehicles torched by crowds of hostile youths, French police say they face an urban guerrilla war when they enter the run-down neighborhoods that ring the major cities. “Our role is to guarantee the safety of people and property but the great difficulty today is that police are having problems ensuring their own safety,” said Jerome Hanarte of the Alliance-Police Nationale union. Bedside television interviews with officers hospitalized after beatings in “les banlieues,” or suburbs, support statistics showing a 6.7 percent jump in violent crime in the 12 months to August. Fourteen officers are hurt every day in the line of duty, unions estimate, and law and order is sure to feature prominently in next year’s presidential election. The head of the French crime statistics body told Reuters the rise in attacks on police was partly due to Interior Minister Nicola...

Women talk three times as much as men, says study | the Daily Mail : "It is something one half of the population has long suspected - and the other half always vocally denied. Women really do talk more than men. In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day - 13,000 more than the average man. Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat - and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests. The book - written by a female psychiatrist - says that inherent differences between the male and female brain explain why women are naturally more talkative than men. In The Female Mind, Dr Luan Brizendine says women devote more brain cells to talking than men. And, if that wasn't enough, the simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high. Dr Brizendine, a self-proclaimed feminist, say...

Teacher slayings shut Thai schools - CNN.com : "BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Hundreds of schools in Thailand's restive south will shut their doors in response to increasingly vicious attacks by suspected Muslim insurgents against teachers and schools, an official said Saturday. The closure, which begins Monday, affects all 336 primary and secondary schools in the province of Pattani, where two teachers were fatally shot by suspected insurgents in the past two days. In one of the killings, attackers shot a school principal Friday, and then set his body on fire. The principal became the 59th teacher or school official killed in three years of violence, said Bunsom Thongsriprai, president of the Teachers' Association in Pattani. 'Teachers can't bear what has happened,' Bunsom said. 'They are paranoid, worried and afraid.' He said the province's schools, which teach about 100,000 students, will reopen when teachers feel safe. More than 1,800 people have di...

What the Islamists Have Learned What we have discovered in Iraq is the weakest link in the ability of the United States to sustain military operations overseas. That link is the U.S. media. They are Islamists’ best friends. Experience shows that the mainstream press of the United States is alienated from the U.S. military. In addition, the American press is extremely vulnerable to anti-U.S. propaganda. Thus, the American public will be fed nearly everything that foreign adversaries—our band of brothers—wish to feed it about the war. Therefore, I write: Maxim # 1: To defeat America, impose upon the imagination of its media your own storyline. Even if you can muster only 10,000 soldiers over the entire countryside of Iraq, paint the narrative like this: The Americans are irresistible occupiers, and yet they cannot prevent small (even individual) acts of destruction. Daily, unrelenting acts of destruction demonstrate that chaos rules. The American strategy, and the America...

High Court to Weigh Climate Change Case WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court hears arguments this week in a case that could determine whether the Bush administration must change course in how it deals with the threat of global warming. A dozen states as well as environmental groups and large cities are trying to convince the court that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate, as a matter of public health, the amount of carbon dioxide that comes from vehicles. [....] : "The Bush administration intends to argue before the court on Wednesday that the EPA lacks the power under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. The agency contends that even if it did have such authority, it would have discretion under the law on how to address the problem without imposing emissions controls. The states, led by Massachusetts, and more than a dozen environmental groups insist the 1970 law makes clear that carbon dioxide is a pollutant - much like lead and smog-causin...

Word on the street ... they’re listening - Sunday Times - Times Online : "POLICE and councils are considering monitoring conversations in the street using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras, write Steven Swinford and Nicola Smith. The microphones can detect conversations 100 yards away and record aggressive exchanges before they become violent. The devices are used at 300 sites in Holland and police, councils and transport officials in London have shown an interest in installing them before the 2012 Olympics. The interest in the equipment comes amid growing concern that Britain is becoming a “surveillance society”. It was recently highlighted that there are more than 4.2m CCTV cameras, with the average person being filmed more than 300 times a day. The addition of microphones would take surveillance into uncharted territory. The Association of Chief Police Officers has warned that a full public debate over the microphones’ impact on privacy will be needed before the...

lgf: France Spoiling for a Fight : "cbinflux 11/22/2006 07:54PM PST OT Not sure that I follow the math, but the point is easily made: Regardless of where you stand on the issue of the U.S. involvement in Iraq, here's a sobering statistic. There has been a monthly average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths. That gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers. The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 Persons for the same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capital than you are in Iraq. Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington" Found this comment on a post at littlegreenfootballs.com

BREITBART.COM - Russian rocket deliveries to Iran started : "Russia has begun deliveries of the Tor-M1 air defence rocket system to Iran, Russian news agencies quoted military industry sources as saying, in the latest sign of a Russian-US rift over Iran. 'Deliveries of the Tor-M1 have begun. The first systems have already been delivered to Tehran,' ITAR-TASS quoted an unnamed, high-ranking source as saying Friday. The United States has pressed Russia to halt military sales to Iran, which Washington accuses of harbouring secret plans to build a nuclear weapon. Moscow has consistently defended its weapons trade with Iran. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said the contract for 29 rocket systems, signed in December last year, was legitimate because the Tor-M1 has a purely defensive role. ITAR-TASS reported that the rockets were to be deployed around Iran's nuclear sites, including the still incomplete, Russian-built atomic power station at Bushehr."

Shiites burn Sunnis alive, torch buildings near Iraqi army post - USATODAY.com : "BAGHDAD (AP) — Militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by, and seven Sunni mosques came under attack as Shiites took revenge for the slaughter of 215 people in the Sadr City slum. ON DEADLINE: The latest on Iraq's worst sectarian violence With the government trying to avert a civil war, two simultaneous bombings in Tal Afar, in northern Iraq, killed at least 23 people. On Thursday, Sunni-Arab insurgents unleashed bombings and mortar attacks in Sadr City, the deadliest assault since the U.S.-led invasion. Members of the Mahdi Army militia burned four mosques and several homes while killing 12 other Sunni residents in the once-mixed Hurriyah neighborhood until American forces arrived, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein. Gunmen loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr began taking ove...

Independent Online Edition > Science & Technology : "Scientists have discovered a dramatic variation in the genetic make-up of humans that could lead to a fundamental reappraisal of what causes incurable diseases and could provide a greater understanding of mankind. The discovery has astonished scientists studying the human genome - the genetic recipe of man. Until now it was believed the variation between people was due largely to differences in the sequences of the individual ' letters' of the genome. It now appears much of the variation is explained instead by people having multiple copies of some key genes that make up the human genome. Until now it was assumed that the human genome, or 'book of life', is largely the same for everyone, save for a few spelling differences in some of the words. Instead, the findings suggest that the book contains entire sentences, paragraphs or even whole pages that are repeated any number of times. The findings mean that ...

BREITBART.COM - Bush warns Syria, Iran after Lebanon killing : "Bush did not apportion direct blame but called for an investigation into 'those people and those forces' behind the killing of the anti-Syrian Christian leader. 'We support the Siniora government and its democracy and we support the Lebanese people's desire to live in peace and we support their efforts to defend their democracy against attempts by Syria, Iran and allies to foment instability and violence in that important country,' said Bush. The killing came against a backdrop of global calls, so far resisted by the United States, for a dialogue with Syria and Iran over chaos in Iraq. But Bush's tone, further bolstered in a written statement on the killing, appeared to cast further doubt on already slim chances of such a diplomatic opening. 'Syria's refusal to cease and desist from its continuing efforts to destabilize Lebanon's democratically elected government' was a violati...

Rage against Syria fuelled by minister's assassination - World - Times Online Pierre Gemayel, Lebanon’s Industry Minister and son of a former President, was shot dead yesterday in his car in a Beirut suburb. It was the first assassination of a leading anti-Syrian figure in almost a year. The murder of the 34-year-old minister is certain to increase political tensions in Lebanon, where the militant Shia Hezbollah party is leading a drive to overturn the Western-backed Government. [...] Hundreds of angry and weeping supporters of the Gemayel family converged on the St Youssef hospital in the Doura suburb of Beirut, where a stream of leading anti-Syrian figures paid condolences. The Gemayels are one of Lebanon’s leading political dynasties. Mr Gemayel’s grandfather, also Pierre, founded the Phalange party, at one time the leading Christian political body. His uncle, Bashir, was assassinated in a bomb blast in September 1982, days before being sworn in as President. Speaking to reporte...

Syrian link to murder threatens Blair's push for peace - World - Times Online : "Tony Blair’s policy of engagement with Syria came under immediate threat last night as the assassination of a Lebanese government minister was blamed on Damascus. Lebanon was plunged into a political crisis after Pierre Gemayel, a prominent anti-Syrian politician and the Industry Minister in the beleaguered Government, was shot dead in a Christian suburb. Amid nervousness in Whitehall, Mr Blair’s spokesman said that the death should be investigated before conclusions were reached. But he accepted that, “without jumping to conclusions”, part of the Government’s judgment of Syria would be how it behaved in Lebanon. President Bush accused Syria and Iran of trying to foment instability in Lebanon. John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, raised the possibility of Syrian involvement in the shooting. Referring to an investigation into the assassination last year of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Ra...

BU group offers white scholarship - News : "Looking to draw attention to what they call the 'worst form of bigotry confronting America today,' Boston University's College Republicans are circulating an application for a 'Caucasian Achievement and Recognition Scholarship' that requires applicants be at least 25 percent Caucasian. 'Did we do this to give a scholarship to white kids? Of course not,' the scholarship reads. 'Did we do it to trigger a discussion on what we believe to be the morally wrong practice of basing decisions in our schools and our jobs on racial preferences rather than merit? Absolutely.' The scholarship, which is privately funded by the BUCR without the support of the university, is meant to raise awareness, group members say. BUCR member argue that racial preferences are a form of 'bigotry.' The group has a similar view on affirmative action. The application for the $250 scholarship, due Nov. 30, requires applicants ...

Report: Israeli spies active in Iran | Jerusalem Post : "Iran has developed and tested a trigger device for a nuclear bomb, Israeli agents stationed there have told the White House, according to a report published in The New Yorker Monday morning. # 35 nations meet on denying Iran technical help for building plutonium-producing reactor According to the report, written by Seymour M. Hersh, the White House received the information but did not pass it on to the CIA. The report also stated that in the past six months, Israel and the United States had been working together to support a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan. The group had been conducting clandestine cross-border forays into Iran, as 'part of an effort to explore alternative means of applying pressure on Iran,' Hersh said he was told by a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership. The government consultant reportedly said Israel was supplying the Ku...

The New Yorker: PRINTABLES : "And so, that January of 2001, when Donald Rumsfeld was officially welcomed back to the Pentagon, “There was just great relief in the military,” recalled Kenneth Adelman, a former Reagan arms-control official, who was among the invited guests that day. “There was the feeling that now somebody was going to be on their side.” Bush had inherited a pressing problem. The American military continued through the nineteen-nineties to train, plan, and equip itself to fight an enemy—the Soviet Union—that no longer existed. It was hardly a secret that the military was badly in need of reform; everyone in uniform knew it, and those analysts and scholars who populated the think tanks of Washington had been fixated on the subject for most of a decade. As a pro-defense Republican, Bush would have the political capital to bring about genuine, even historic, change. During the campaign, he had vowed to give his Secretary of Defense “a broad mandate to challenge the sta...

The Cure For Diabetes : "What if the American Heart Association endorsed the trans-fat diet? Problem, right? Look at what the American Diabetes Association is spoon-feeding people with diabetes: sugar. Not to worry: We've got the solution right here By: Adam Campbell It's a wonder no one has tried to have Mary Vernon's medical license revoked. Since 1999, the 52-year-old family doctor has been treating diabetic patients in Lawrence, Kansas, with an approach that was abandoned by most physicians in the 1930s. Worse, this Depression-era remedy is the opposite of the current guidelines established by the American Diabetes Association, a nonprofit organization that spent nearly $51 million on research in 2005, and so should know a thing or two about how to handle diabetes. There's no question that Dr. Vernon is trouble -- but for whom? Not her patients, that's for certain. They just won't stay sick. People walk into her office afflicted with type-2 diabetes and...

Lizards Pushed Into Evolutionary Fast Lane : "Evolutionary change is generally considered to be a pedestrian affair, with changes occurring over millennia. But evolutionary biologists from Harvard have shown that natural selection can occur within months, as a population's needs change. Their study, appearing in the journal Science, was based on populations of the lizard Anolis sagrei that inhabits cays (small islands) in the Bahamas, and what happened when a new predator was introduced. The scientists found that natural selection dramatically reversed direction over a very short period, first favoring longer, and then shorter, hind legs. Experiments where researchers are able to witness evolution in action have been something of a rarity. 'Recent work has shown, however, that evolutionary biology can be studied on short time scales and that predictions about it can be tested experimentally. We predicted, and then demonstrated, a reversal in the direction of natural select...

ScienceDaily: Study Of Obese Diabetics Explains Why Low-carb Diets Produce Fast Results : "Philadelphia - A new study by Temple University School of Medicine researchers has shown why the pounds melt so quickly on low-carbohydrate diets, and it's not related to water, metabolism or boredom. The research was conducted in a group of obese patients with type 2 diabetes who followed the Atkins diet. According to lead researcher, Guenther Boden, M.D., 'When carbohydrates were restricted, study subjects spontaneously reduced their caloric intake to a level appropriate for their height, did not compensate by eating more protein or fat, and lost weight. We concluded that excessive overeating had been fueled by carbohydrates.' Almost 80 percent of diabetics are overweight or obese, compounding health risks such as heart disease and stroke. Boden wanted to examine how low-carbohydrate diets, which have been shown to produce rapid weight loss, affected weight, appetite and blood ...

ScienceDaily: Space Sunshade Might Be Feasible In Global Warming Emergency : "The possibility that global warming will trigger abrupt climate change is something people might not want to think about. The graphic shows the 2 foot-diameter flyers at L1. They are transparent, but blur out transmitted light into a donut, as shown for the background stars. The transmitted sunlight is also spread out, so it misses the Earth. This way of removing the light avoids radiation pressure, which would otherwise degrade the L1 orbit. (Illustration: Courtesy of UA Steward Observatory) But University of Arizona astronomer Roger Angel thinks about it. Angel, a University of Arizona Regents' Professor and one of the world's foremost minds in modern optics, directs the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory and the Center for Astronomical Adaptive Optics. He has won top honors for his many extraordinary conceptual ideas that have become practical engineering solutions for astronomy. For the pa...

U.N. says Somalia arms embargo violated - Yahoo! News NAIROBI, Kenya - Ten nations and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been supplying weapons to an Islamic militia that controls much of Somalia, violating an international arms embargo, according to a U.N. commission report obtained Wednesday. But experts and diplomats expressed deep skepticism about an allegation in the report that 720 Somali mercenaries fought alongside Hezbollah in its battle with Israel in July. There were also doubts about the U.N. panel’s findings that Iran shipped arms to the Islamic militants in return for access to uranium mines in the hometown of the top Islamic leader. The Iranian government, in a letter to the U.N., also strenuously denied shipping weapons to Somalia. The U.N. panel, charged with monitoring the arms embargo on Somalia, said Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Uganda had all supported armed groups inside Somalia. “At the time of the wri...

San Mateo Daily Journal : "Belmont to be first U.S. city to ban all smoking By Dana Yates, Daily Journal Staff Belmont is set to make history by becoming the first city in the nation to ban smoking on its streets and almost everywhere else. The Belmont City Council voted unanimously last night to pursue a strict law that will prohibit smoking anywhere in the city except for single-family detached residences. Smoking on the street, in a park and even in one’s car will become illegal and police would have the option of handing out tickets if they catch someone. The actual language of the law still needs to be drafted and will likely come back to the council either in December or early next year. “We have a tremendous opportunity here. We need to pass as stringent a law as we can, I would like to make it illegal,” said Councilman Dave Warden. “What if every city did this, image how many lives would be saved? If we can do one little thing here at this level it will matter.”"

US plans last big push in Iraq | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited : "Strategy document calls for extra 20,000 troops, aid for Iraqi army and regional summit Simon Tisdall Thursday November 16, 2006 The Guardian President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make 'a last big push' to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal deliberations. Mr Bush's refusal to give ground, coming in the teeth of growing calls in the US and Britain for a radical rethink or a swift exit, is having a decisive impact on the policy review being conducted by the Iraq Study Group chaired by Bush family loyalist James Baker, the sources said. Although the panel's work is not complete, its recommendations are expected to be built around a four-point 'victory strategy' developed by Pentagon of...

BREITBART.COM - Maine Activist Cited for Bin Laden Stunt : "A Democratic activist who was arrested after he was spotted on a highway overpass dressed as Osama bin Laden on Halloween faces additional charges for the stunt. Tom Connolly was charged Wednesday with terrorizing and reckless conduct, in addition to the original charge of criminal threatening, prosecutor Stephanie Anderson said. All three charges are misdemeanors. 'Halloween or not, in this day and age you do not get to dress as an international terrorist and wave what appears to be an AK-47 at rush hour traffic,' Anderson said. Police responded to calls from motorists on Interstate 295 about a man on an overpass wearing a white robe and carrying a fake assault rifle. The costume included a rubber mask, plastic dynamite and grenades, in addition to the toy assault rifle. Before he was arrested, Connolly walked toward officers as plastic grenades tumbled onto the ground, an officer said. Anderson said Connolly cre...

BREITBART.COM - Maine Activist Cited for Bin Laden Stunt : "A Democratic activist who was arrested after he was spotted on a highway overpass dressed as Osama bin Laden on Halloween faces additional charges for the stunt. Tom Connolly was charged Wednesday with terrorizing and reckless conduct, in addition to the original charge of criminal threatening, prosecutor Stephanie Anderson said. All three charges are misdemeanors. 'Halloween or not, in this day and age you do not get to dress as an international terrorist and wave what appears to be an AK-47 at rush hour traffic,' Anderson said. Police responded to calls from motorists on Interstate 295 about a man on an overpass wearing a white robe and carrying a fake assault rifle. The costume included a rubber mask, plastic dynamite and grenades, in addition to the toy assault rifle. Before he was arrested, Connolly walked toward officers as plastic grenades tumbled onto the ground, an officer said. Anderson said Connolly cre...

Iranian paper: Great war to wipe out Israel coming - News from Israel, Ynetnews : "Iranian newspapers Kehyan and and Resalat have urged Muslims around the world to prepare for a 'great war' to destroy the State of Israel. The newspapers published the editorials, translated from Persian by MEMRI , the Middle East translation service, to mark 'Quds' day on October 20, an Iranian 'holiday' calling for the 'liberation' of Jerusalem and war against Israel. 'Hizbullah destroyed at least half of Israel in the Lebanon war... Now only half the path (to its destruction) remains,' an editorial in the conservative Keyhan newspaper declared. 'It was proven that, by means of an offensive operation that need not be equal to Israel's moves, it is possible to neutralize the Zionist navy,' the article said triumphantly. 'Great war not far off' It continued: 'Just as in one 33-day war more than 50 percent of Israel was destroyed, and t...

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/14/2006 | Historian says peak oil production is still a quarter-century away : "WASHINGTON - Far from being a nearly exhausted resource, the world's oil reserves are three times bigger than what some popular estimates state, and peak global oil production is still about a quarter-century away, according to a new study by Pulitzer Prize-winning oil historian Daniel Yergin. The remaining oil resource base is about 3.74 trillion barrels, according to a report released Tuesday by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which Yergin runs. That's more than three times the 1.2 trillion barrels that 'peak-oil' theorists suggest. CERA's report, titled 'Why the Peak Oil Theory Falls Down,' challenges an increasingly popular view that the world is about to run out of oil. On the contrary, CERA argues that the world is likely to begin running out of oil between 2030 and the middle of the century. Even so, CERA says, efforts are needed...

How to be a genius About the time I had my epiphany, a growing field of scholarship was more rigorously reaching the same conclusion. It seems the ability we're so fond of calling talent or even genius arises not from innate gifts but from an interplay of fair (but not extraordinary) natural ability, quality instruction, and a mountain of work. This new discipline - a mix of psychology and cognitive science - has now produced its first large collection of expert reviews, the massive Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 052184097X). The book essentially tells us to forget the notion that "genius", "talent" or any other innate qualities create the greats we call geniuses. Instead, as the American inventor Thomas Edison said, genius is 99 per cent perspiration - or, to be truer to the data, perhaps 1 per cent inspiration, 29 per cent good instruction and encouragement, and 70 per cent perspiration. Examine c...

Iran plotting to groom bin Laden's successor Iran is trying to form an unholy alliance with al-Qa'eda by grooming a new generation of leaders to take over from Osama bin Laden, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. Western intelligence officials say the Iranians are determined to take advantage of bin Laden's declining health to promote senior officials who are known to be friendly to Teheran. Tony Blair addressing the Lord Mayor's banquet last night The revelation will deal a major blow to Tony Blair's hopes of establishing a "new partnership" with Teheran. Addressing the Lord Mayor's banquet in London last night — an occasion traditionally used by the Prime Minister to set out the Government's foreign policy — Mr Blair said he wanted to launch a diplomatic initiative to secure peace in Iraq by establishing dialogue with Iran and ending threats of military force against the regime. He confirmed that a major rethink of strategy was under way on both si...

Telegraph | News | Teheran 'providing refuge for al-Qaeda terrorists' : "About 25 al-Qaeda leaders, including three of Osama bin Laden's sons, are running terrorist operations from their refuge in Iran rather than languishing under house arrest as the Teheran regime claims, intelligence officials have said. The disclosure comes as Maj-Gen James Dutton, the commander of British forces in south-eastern Iraq, reiterated on Friday that the technology for lethal new rebel bombs was crossing into the country from Iran. A 'top-ranking Western secret service agent' has told Cicero magazine that the senior al-Qaeda operatives, who fled across the border from Afghanistan into Iran after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001, have been provided with a secure hiding place, logistical support and equipment by the Revolutionary Guards. advertisement Cicero is a German investigative publication known for its strong intelligence contacts. Iran claimed that it put the al-...

Ahmadinejad: Israel’s destruction near - News from Israel, Ynetnews : "According to the Iranian media Monday, Iranian President Mahoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel was destined to ‘disappearance and destruction’ at a council meeting with Iranian ministers. “The western powers created the Zionist regime in order to expand their control of the area. This regime massacres Palestinians everyday, but since this regime is against nature, we will soon witness its disappearance and destruction,” Ahmadinejad said. (AFP) "

BREITBART.COM - Israel will 'not tolerate' a nuclear Iran: Olmert : "'We will not tolerate the possession of nuclear weapons by Iran,' Olmert told NBC television's 'Today Show' program, ahead of talks with President George W. Bush on Iran's nuclear ambitions and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Asked whether his country was considering a preemptive strike targeting Tehran's nuclear facilities, Olmert answered: 'I hope we don't have to reach that stage.' But the Israel leader said his first choice is a negotiated resolution. 'Every compromise that will stop Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities, which will be acceptable to President Bush, would be acceptable to me.' Olmert added that he was not seeking Washington's protection from Tehran. 'I am not coming to the United States to ask America to save Israel,' he said, saying his country had drawn the lessons of the Holocaust and World War II. 'In the 20th cen...

WorldNetDaily: Britain discovers secret army of well-trained jihadi terrorists

8 Bomb Blasts in Thailand Injures 9 - washingtonpost.com : "BANGKOK, Thailand -- Eight bombs exploded almost simultaneously at car and motorcycle showrooms in restive southern Thailand on Thursday, wounding nine people, police said. The blasts were believed to have been carried out by Muslim insurgents, police said. PHOTOS The week's events from around the world, captured in pictures. � VIEW THIS WEEK'S PHOTOS Save & Share Article What's This? Digg Google del.icio.us Yahoo! Reddit Facebook Attackers posing as customers planted explosives inside cars or near motorcycles at Honda, Nissan, Chevrolet, Mazda, Ford and Isuzu dealerships and at two motorcycle showrooms, Yala police Lt. Col. Sakkarin Bamphensamai said. He said without elaborating that the blasts bore the trademarks of Muslim separatists. Police Col. Phumphet Phiphatpetchphoom said that initial reports showed that nine people were wounded. The attacks came one day after the second visit in a week to the in...

ScienceDaily: Exercise Helps Keep Your Psyche Fit : "Washington - A new review of psychological research shows that exercise is an effective but underused treatment for mild to moderate depression. The review, published in the June issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, a journal published by the American Psychological Association, also shows there is some evidence that regular exercise may help in the treatment of schizophrenia, alcohol dependence and as a singular treatment for some anxiety disorders and for people suffering from body image problems. The authors reviewed studies since 1981 in which exercise was used as an intervention in treating individuals with the following clinically diagnosed psychiatric disorders: depression, anxiety, developmental disabilities, schizophrenia, psychosomatic disorders and substance abuse. The review of research concludes that regular exercise is a viable, cost-effective treatment for mild to moderate depression and may be ...

Just like old times: realists from the first Bush era return to power - World - Times Online : "Two years ago they were the pariahs of neoconservative Washington, a group of soft-spined old timers who refused to see that the only way to defeat America’s enemies was with the lethal might of the US military. But within hours of Donald Rumsfeld’s enforced resignation on Wednesday, and in the clearest of signs that President Bush has turned to his father to dig him out of a mess in Iraq, the foreign policy “realists” who dominated US diplomacy in the early 1990s have been suddenly restored to the helm. In choosing Robert Gates, the former CIA Director, to replace Mr Rumsfeld as Defence Secretary, Mr Bush completed an extraordinary recall to duty for the White House foreign policy team that advised his father, while ending the influence of the neoconservatives who had disparaged them after Mr Bush took office in 2000. Mr Gates comes from a circle of national security aides who counsell...

World news from The Times and the Sunday Times - Times Online Al Qaida vows to bomb White House Al Qaida's leader in Iraq has vowed his fighters will never rest until they have blown up the White House and reached Jerusalem. In an audio tape made available on militant websites, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir claimed to be winning the war in Iraq and said the US President was "stupid". He praised the Republican defeat in the US midterm elections as "reasonable", and claimed the al Qaida army has 12,000 fighters in Iraq, ready to die for their cause. Wait, doesn't he know the peace loving dems are now in charge? I thought they only hated us because of Bush?

Troops fear Rumfeld's exit will end their Iraq mission - World - Times Online : "Half of America and the upper echelons of the US military may be cheering Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation from the post of Defence Secretary, but there was no rejoicing yesterday among those most directly affected by his decisions: the frontline soldiers in Iraq. Troops expressed little pleasure at the departure of the man responsible for their protracted deployment to a hostile country where 2,839 of their comrades have died. Indeed, some members of the 101st Airborne Division and other troops approached by The Times as they prepared to fly home from Baghdad airport yesterday expressed concern that Robert Gates, Mr Rumsfeld’s successor, and the Democrat-controlled Congress, might seek to wind down their mission before it was finished. Mr Rumsfeld “made decisions, he stuck with them and he did what he thought was right, whether people agreed with it, liked it, or not”, Staff Sergeant Frank Notaro sa...

ScienceDaily: Regular Exercise Plays A Consistent And Significant Role In Reducing Fatigue : "“A lot of times when people are fatigued the last thing they want to do is exercise,” said professor Patrick O’Connor, co-director of the UGA exercise psychology laboratory. “But if you’re physically inactive and fatigued, being just a bit more active will help.” Health professionals encourage regular exercise to prevent or improve symptoms of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity, but the scientific evidence on whether exercise increases or reduces fatigue had never been reviewed quantitatively. O’Connor, kinesiology professor Rod Dishman and lead author Tim Puetz, who recently completed his doctoral work at UGA, analyzed 70 randomized, controlled trials that enrolled a total of 6,807 subjects. They found strong support for the role of exercise in reducing fatigue. “More than 90 percent of the studies showed the same thing: Sedentary people who completed a regular exerci...

Reason Magazine - Why Poor Countries Are Poor : "Evidently not. Mancur Olson showed that kleptocracy at the top stunts the growth of poor countries. Having a thief for president doesn't necessarily spell doom; the president might prefer to boost the economy and then take a slice of a bigger pie. But in general, looting will be widespread either because the dictator is not confident of his tenure or because he needs to allow others to steal in order to keep their support. The rot starts with government, but it afflicts the entire society. There's no point investing in a business because the government will not protect you against thieves. (So you might as well become a thief yourself.) There's no point in paying your phone bill because no court can make you pay. (So there's no point being a phone company.) There's no point setting up an import business because the customs officers will be the ones to benefit. (So the customs office is underfunded and looks even ...